hanakotoba, hanataba
by postscriptress
Summary: "I am not the kind of man who'd let such a beautiful young lady like you walk in the dark, all alone." Definitely true, the truest of truths, straight from the bottom of Mikoto Mikoshiba's too-large, too-fragile heart. (Or: in which Mikorin falls for Chiyo.)


Little does she know, in the relative security of his thoughts, Mikoto really does call her "_Chiyorin_".

She already calls him "_Mikorin_". He thinks it'd only be fair.

But no, her unimpressed face back then had been disapproval enough, so fine, "_Sakura_" it has to be, like right now.

"Sakura, let's walk home together?"

"Huh, that's unusual, Mikorin. You're not staying over tonight, either?"

Because on any other day, he _would_, all too willingly. Just a few minutes earlier Mikoto had been spouting off every possible complaint known to man - the umpteenth crick in his neck, the cramping up of his legs, how his fingers stopped bending properly since page seventeen. Between that and the lateness of the hour the wise thing, the normal thing, for Mikoto to do would be to tell his parents he's staying over at his friend Nozaki's house today, because their "_project_" was difficult and time kinda ran away from them. It's not exactly a lie. And even if it _was_ a lie, it's not exactly a lie he doesn't know how to tell.

(On theory, Nozaki could and _should_ extend the same option to Sakura, who seemed to have hurt her wrist and finished off half the extra-large ink bottle. But, well, she's a girl and all.)

"Nah, not tonight. I think my folks would've missed seeing me around by now." _This_ was true. " And my cousin's coming over - he needs my help for something." _Also_ true. "And, well."

Here goes nothing. Bring on the sparkles.

"I am not the kind of man who'd let such a beautiful young lady like you walk in the dark, all alone."

Definitely true, the _truest_ of truths, straight from the bottom of Mikoto Mikoshiba's too-large, too-fragile heart.

He can feel his ears burning - Nozaki's smoke alarms really _are_ crap, if they didn't even notice that - but she's looking up at him with her eyes wide and her pink lips parted just _so_, and for a single beautiful moment Mikoto can't even have the nerve to be ashamed of his being an utter cheeseball, for once. But then she snaps her mouth shut, and fixes him with another one of her unimpressed glares.

"Mikorin, you're embarrassed _again_, aren't you?"

"-_Guhh_! I'm _not_!"

Now that, _that_ right there, _that_ was a lie.

Why does she have to know him so damned well? Guy can't catch a break, anywhere.

"I keep telling you, Mikorin, you don't have to keep saying those things, if you're gonna be all blushy about it three seconds after anyway." Sakura sighs, straightening a hair ribbon. "It's like Wakamatsu-kun listening to Yuzuki's songs. What did Nozaki-kun call it? Right, counterproductive."

The thing is, though, his predicament is exactly the same as poor Wakamatsu's, and it's not just because of any presumable counterproductive-ness or whatever. It's to do with a certain commonplace four-letter word that he keeps either throwing around or implying in his cheesy lines and dating sim strategies. The word that he just knows colors the air around him when he's around her, the exact same word she, in turn, would no doubt use in relation to a certain very familiar someone else.

Speaking of.

"Mikoshiba, Sakura, thank you for your hard work." Nozaki says, nodding their direction. "Are you both sure you're really not staying for dinner?"

"Yeah, Nozaki-kun." Sakura sighs, palpable distress weighing heavily in her tone. _She really likes spending time with him, huh,_ Mikoto thinks, and tries very hard not to let that sting. "I've gotta catch the next train, and Mikorin's got visitors back home."

"I won't let you go empty-handed, at the very least." Nozaki mutters, retrieving a couple of stacked, cloth-wrapped _bento_ boxes from the kitchen. "Here you go."

"Thanks, man." Mikoto can't help but wonder how boundless that guy's femininity really is - down to the patterns of the cloth (the one for Sakura is pink-and-white-polkadotted, Mikoto's own is a red floral pattern, the kind he'd draw himself), he really thinks everything down to the very last detail.

Too bad, then, that Nozaki's detail-oriented-ness did _not_ carry over into him understanding how, when Sakura looks up at him with that radiant smile on his face, it's not _just_ because they've grown to become good friends. But oh well.

"Thank you very much, Nozaki-kun!" Sakura says, her cheeks warmer than anything Mikoto's ever seen (well, save for Mikoto's own face at the very pinnacle of his embarrassment) as she smiles even more, apparently that was a thing that was possible. "We'll be going now."

"Have a safe trip," Nozaki tells her, waving her off as she walks to the staircase, slowly, waiting for Mikoto to put his shoes on. Mikoto, to whom Nozaki is half-chiding, half-whispering:

"_Tell her_."

Mikoto rolls his eyes at the other boy's persistence - yes, he likes being friends with a fellow budding romantic like Nozaki, but even now that they are friends, he doesn't think that Nozaki is right in saying that giving love advice is his forte. Now, if Mikoto were wrong and Nozaki's only been so invested in his heartbreak for the sake of _manga_ research - he's gonna kill him. Maybe. He'll have to ask Hori-_senpai_ for martial arts lessons first. That roundhouse kick he did on Kashima the other day looked particularly impressive…

"Easy for _you_ to say," Mikoto scoffs, standing up and fixing his shirt. "But it's easier said than done."

"Aw, c'mon, Mikoshiba. It's the umpteenth time you've walked home with her, take the chance!" Nozaki insists, looking for all the world girlier than an actual female dolled up in his "_I 3 UME_" apron (why the _hell_ does he even have that), ladle in hand, and sparkly words of sappy romance spewing forth. "_Seriously_. Close quarters, romantic moonlit setting - what on Earth are you waiting for?"

"Umm, a lot of things?" _The end of the world as we know it? Or that you would finally catch on and be with her together forever, god __**damn**__ it. Whichever comes first._

"Whatever. I still think you have got to tell her soon, though. You're being silly, _Mikorin_."

"What the - hey! Nozaki you _brat_, who said you could call me '_Mikorin_'?"

"And _yet_," Nozaki smirks, the hint of a sing-song-y lilt to his voice, "You let _her_ call you that anyway."

"…!"

"Your flushed face right now looks really _cute_, Mikoshiba."

"…would you just shut _up_ already, Nozaki."

Yup, that's settled: bright and early tomorrow morning, Mikoto's going to brave the third year halls and ask Hori-_senpai_, once and for all, about the finer points of throwing Nozaki over his shoulder, that big, nosy lug.

* * *

Their story goes like this: she's here, and he's there, and sometimes, they walk home together. Not exactly one for the history books.

There's really nothing special about it, down to the route they take (generic Japanese roads, no magical girl artifacts or meet-cutes whatsoever, _boring_) or their many conversation topics (school, Nozaki, the weather, their friends, dating sim fanfic, Nozaki, the next manga chapter, TV shows, heaven help him, _Nozaki_). But somewhere along the line, for some reason or another, the truth is that every time Sakura's entire face brightens up whenever she talks about Nozaki, Mikoto feels a gaping hole open up in his chest, and then.

He _wishes_.

He wishes that _someday_, the time will come that her face would brighten up like that, like the moon or the sun or any of its fellow star brethren, and it would be because she remembered him.

Way to dream big; he knows he's pretty much screwed. But the point is that now Mikoto spends every time he isn't hanging out with Kashima or hiding from people with her, drinking in the warmth of her laugh and the beauty of her smile like a parched man, that when she had leant on him and said that she felt most comfortable around him for some reason, firecrackers fizzle-popped in his head and his heart was a mess three hours after.

The point is that he's so obvious that one time, when he ended up thinking about her in 2-G, one of his classmates giggled and asked if "_Mikoshiba-kun the lady-killer_" was finally in love.

Come to think of it, there's a reason why Sakura should never understand why Kashima had to ask her, pretty please with a cherry on top, to coax him out from under his desk, that day.

Come to think of it, the line he had sprung on her then, immediately after, had been one of his worst. No wonder she had looked like she wanted to take a page out of Hori-_senpai's_ book and clock him into next Wednesday.

Ah, but the problem is that even if she did do that, she'd look so _cute_ doing martial arts, Mikoto doesn't think he'd mind…

"Is something the matter, Mikorin?"

"Ah! Er, it's nothing, really, Sakura." Mikoto blurts out, shocked at being caught so easily, by the exact person he had been thinking of, no less. "It's just something."

"C'mon, Mikorin, tell me about it."

"Huh?"

"You don't have to be so shy about it, Mikorin, come on." Sakura drawls, fixing Mikoto with one of those capital-L _Looks_ again. The one that makes him go into cardiac arrest. "I mean. I basically bared my heart to you with all my Nozaki-kun troubles, anyway. The least I can do, as your friend, is to listen to you in return."

He looks so damned shell-shocked at her easy admission, and he knows she might end up looking at him quizzically because of the slack-jawed dumb expression on his face, but she _has_ to understand. Has to understand how he's struck by the fact that he's her _friend_ now, _oh my God_, he's never been considered an actual walk-home-together, share-lunch-and-gossip, laugh-at-inside-jokes friend of a girl before, much less by a girl he actually honest-to-goodness _liked_.

(Kashima, his best friend, in all her prince-being, lady-magnetizing, Hori-_senpai_-fangirling glory, was simply a different case altogether.)

"What's wrong, Mikorin?" Sakura says, cocking her head and looking at him with that _look_, the one that makes Mikoto's heart go into overdrive whenever he sees it. "I mean, we are friends, right? I'm not just getting ahead of myself here?"

"Actually, _moncoeur_," Why his damned mouth was ever given the power over his autopilot mode, Mikoto doesn't think he'll ever know, "Your words _wound_ me. I'd thought we'd become _more_ than friends, at this point."

"Ha ha, _ha_." For such a cute unassuming young lady, Sakura has a surprising amount of _snark_ in her, and Mikoto doesn't know if him knowing that makes his predicament better or worse. "Mikorin, I'm your _friend_. You don't need to spin pretty lies every time to get my attention, you know. Not if you're gonna get embarrassed in the next ten seconds anyway."

The most embarrassing part about this, actually, is that Mikoto had actually _not_ been lying. At _all_.

"…_guh_, yeah, you're right, we're friends." He tries so hard not to let go of his cool facade when she grins at him with that smile of hers again, but from the half-smile that finds itself creeping up his lips Mikoto seems to be fighting a losing battle. "Still. I don't think I should tell you about it."

On any other girl, doing that hands-on-hips pose would look threatening, or imposing, or even borderline seductive. On Sakura, it just looks cute as hell. "And _why_ is that?"

_Because talking with you, about how I've fallen for you, without letting you know, is a lost art better left to accidental pros like you and Nozaki_. "Because it's embarrassing, leave it alone."

"Mi-ko-_rin_." Sakura chides, going up on her tip-toes to wrap an arm around his shoulder, as if it were a normal thing between them, as if Mikoto's heart wasn't nanoseconds away from spontaneously combusting. "Knowing you for this long has given me more secondhand embarrassment than a girl should live with. Now _spill_."

He doesn't know if it's the soft moonlight bouncing off her long lashes, or the twinkle twinkle little stars in her eyes when she looks at him, or the warmth radiating off the arm she has around him, but somehow Mikoto ends up blurting it out. Well, _most_ of it.

"Th-there's this girl."

"Yes?"

"A girl I _like_."

"_Ooh_!" After the drama club beach retreat, Nozaki had confided in him that Sakura was somewhat of a gossip when it came to love, for some reason. The way she looks at him after his last words only hammers in this truth further. "That's a surprise. What's she like?"

Mikoto chooses not to comment on how she finds the idea of him liking someone '_surprising_', to better focus on the arduous task of describing…well, _Sakura_, without taking a page out of her book and saying something about the girl he likes being a "_145cm redhead with cute red ribbons, with a smile like sunshine_".

God, he is _such_ a sap.

"Cute, but that goes without saying. Friendly, nice to be around with, somewhat charming. But she's really determined-" - _especially_ when it comes to matters regarding a certain _Umetarou Nozaki_ \- "-and if it's regarding something she likes, she never gives up, ever. Also, she's, um." Good heavens why do love stories make this sound so easy, it's embarrassing as all hell. "She's a very kind person."

"Gosh, Mikorin." Sakura says, looking at him and his red face with something that could be, but isn't quite, pity. Or commiseration. "You _really_ like this girl, don't you?"

_More than anything_.

_Ugh, don't say __**that**_, as if Mikoto wasn't being uncool enough. "Yeah, I guess?"

"Aw, you look so _cute_ right now, Mikorin."

"Shut up, Sakura." Would she still think that if she knew he only truly blushed like a beet whenever he thought of _her_?

"So, when are you gonna tell her?"

"Ex_cuse_ me?"

"Mikorin, you've gotta tell her somehow, you know, if you've fallen this far for her already." Sakura chides, waggling a finger at his shocked face. "Delaying the confession does you no favors. Trust me,_ I_ should know."

Which is _exactly_ why Mikoto isn't confessing, in fact.

"Yeah, it's just like I told Nozaki earlier - easier said than done."

"_Nozaki-kun_ knows about this?"

"It's really not as _easy_ as he thinks it should be," Mikoto blurts out, diverting the topic as far from Nozaki as possible, because then she might ask him and Nozaki's always been a spectacularly bad liar. "She already likes someone else."

"Her boyfriend?"

"No," _But she sure as hell __**wishes**__ he could be her boyfriend._ "Just someone she _really_ likes. Someone she's liked for a long time now. I don't have a chance."

"I find _that_ hard to believe. I mean, if it were me, let's face it, you're kind of a _catch_, Mikorin."

Time doesn't freeze, the earth doesn't stop turning, the damned cicadas don't even stop chirping, but for poor little Mikoto Mikoshiba, it sure as hell feels like it anyway.

"_Of course_ I'm a catch, Sakura," Dear Lord, Mikoto thinks, how can I just shut up and stop talking for one damned second. "Don't you know? I'm the famous playboy!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know already. _Sheesh_." Sakura deadpans, pulling him along by the strap of his book bag (just a few centimeters more and her fingers would brush against his, oh god _wow_), bringing him further along their route. "Anyway. I've got a lot of girl friends who think you're a looker, and despite the fact that you like spouting off cheesy pick-up lines every time you get, you're really a good guy, and a great friend. So there you go. No matter how cool she thinks this other guy is, you just _might_ be cooler."

"Thanks, Sakura." The thing with having friends: sometimes they say exactly what you need to hear, whenever you need to hear it.

"That is, of course, as long as you don't embarrass yourself and get depressed within the first twenty seconds."

Another thing about friends: sometimes they say too much.

"Guh, _seriously_, Sakura, you're hurting me here."

Her laugh _shouldn't_ be the most beautiful sound in the world, Mikoto knows this, but damn if rationality still worked in the face of how her pinky, still pulling on his bag, keeps brushing past his curled-up index finger.

"Just telling it as it is. So, you gonna tell her?"

"Hm. Maybe not right away. Don't wanna _scare_ the poor lamb."

"There you are with the lambs again…"

"It's kind of a habit. Makes me sound like a totally cool heartthrob, huh?"

"Kind of reminds me of the wolf in sheep's clothing, in fact. But knowing you…Mikorin, you're more of a _sheep_ in wolf's clothing…"

"_Tsch_!"

"But I guess that's just a part of your charm."

"Whoa there with the pretty words, young lady. Don't be too nice to poor ol' me all of a sudden." Mikoto quips, as carelessly as if he were joking about the drama club's "Bovine Prince" project. "You never know. I might just end up falling for you."

"And won't _that_ be a surprise," Sakura quips back, the obvious clue flying over her head as cleanly as her own quips fly over Nozaki's. What goes around comes around. Damn it all. "You're still not answering my question, you know."

"Why do you want me to tell her, anyway?"

"Hm, let's see. Because you're my friend? Because you deserve to be happy? Because if she rudely rejects you then I'll have a reason to kick her butt?" Mikoto takes a moment to chuckle at the hilarity of this (Sakura isn't _ever_ rude, and even if she _was_, how would she ever kick her _own_ butt?); a moment Sakura gracefully lets him take, before continuing in her tirade. "Because under all those lines and blushiness, you're a great guy, and I think she should know that too."

If she's gonna go so far as to put it that way…

"Hey, Sakura?"

"Yup, Mikorin?"

"Question: do you think I'm attractive?"

"Well, like I told you earlier, I've got girl friends who think you look really cool -"

"Not that," Mikoto mutters, his hands shooting out to grip her by the shoulders, and if this were a _shoujo_ manga this would be the part where he screws his eyes shut, braces himself, and zeroes in on her lips, but…no. Just. No. That wouldn't be right. "Not them. I meant _you_, Sakura. Do _you_ think I'm attractive?"

"Er," Normally Sakura wouldn't take this seriously - what with Mikoto's habit of bookending serious inquiries with his usual cheese - but there's this indescribable kind of raw desperation in his eyes that holds her captive and demands, no, begs, to be told nothing but the truth. "Yes? Yes, Mikorin, I do think you're attractive."

"And…earlier…a good guy, a great friend?"

"Yeah, all that, sure." Sakura answers, looking at Mikoto quizzically, as he seems to be muttering something to himself. "Mikorin, is there something wr-"

She doesn't get to finish her sentence, doesn't even get a chance, because suddenly Mikoto is leaning forward and pressing a kiss right in the middle of her bangs, with a gentleness she never expected that really, she should've seen coming.

"I'm _glad_," Mikoto murmurs as he pulls away, tucking a stray lock of hair behind Sakura's ear, looking at her, just looking at her, with an impossible _fondness_, as if she were some kind of rare _precious_ thing. "And you're right. I should probably tell her. Go slowly, not scare her. Maybe I'll start tomorrow."

When he bids her farewell shortly after, Sakura's cheeks are burning and while one part of her (the dominant part, actually) says she doesn't understand what just happened, the other part insists that she actually _does_, and should really had seen this from a mile away.

But, seriously: _what the hell_.

* * *

So this is what happens: the next day, when Chiyo Sakura opens her shoe locker, there it is, sitting innocently above her indoor shoes, white on white on school-issued metal partitions. Clean, frothy white, just like her freshman ribbons from long ago, some of them tinged with just the slightest hints of pastel pink.

For all her fondness of them Chiyo doesn't really know enough about flowers other than the fact that they were cute, smelled nice, were used in _shoujo_ manga a lot (hence: Mikorin), and looked pretty in vases and bow patterns. So the most she can do at this point is figure out that there are three kinds of flowers: one vaguely bell-like, drooping in on its own branch, vaguely pink; another flatter with even petals going around; yet another larger and many-petaled and looking kind of like a rose.

"Oh, a confession," Yuzuki quips upon seeing her friend looking numbly at the small bundle in her hands, without even batting an eyelash. "That's interesting."

"_Yuzuki_!" Chiyo blurts out, cheeks as red as the ribbons she favors in her hair. "What are you talking about?"

Yuzuki has the look on her face that says she wants to tell Chiyo how impossible it should be for man to think as slowly as she currently is, only Yuzuki doesn't think her doing so would help speed things along, this time. "Y'know: flowers, shoe locker? I'm not a big romance reader, but that sounds like a confession to me."

"Ah, Yuzuki, come _on_! It might've just been in here by mistake. I mean, seriously, we don't exactly have our names on the shoe lockers..."

In a rare moment of clear comprehension of the situation, Yuzuki shakes her head. "Chiyo, actually, we _do_ have name cards on our lockers. Also, I think there's a card."

And sure enough, there it is: "_To Chiyo Sakura_", in writing that might've been familiar to her, had she paid enough attention in the past. Would this mean that these...whatever these flowers were meant to be...came from someone that she knew?

Yuzuki looks at her friend's flushed face, sighs, and decides to just replace her outdoor shoes for her, somehow put her feet in indoor shoes, and drag her along to homeroom, flowers lying limply in her hands. "Enough of that, girl. Time's a'wasting."

"Why did I think I actually heard you say something responsible?"

"Because you think too little of me, sis. I _am_ actually responsible, and _helpful_...ah."

Chiyo's eyes hone in on whatever it is that Yuzuki's staring at, which turns out to be Kashima and Hori-_senpai_ having a whispered conversation in front of the sliding doors leading to 2-B. They vaguely see Kashima tucking something in Hori-_senpai's_ shirt pocket, as he cocks his head and asks her something.

He doesn't get to hear her answer, which is too bad, because Yuzuki pulls this big yawn all of a sudden, to the surprise of them both.

"Kashima-kun! Hori-_senpai_!" If the other two suddenly jolt as if electrocuted upon hearing her voice, Chiyo decides to ignore it, in favor of being happy that they are here and in front of her right that moment. After the disorienting moment with the flowers, she really needs to see familiar faces right now. "Good morning!"

"'Morning, Chiyo-chan, Seo-_sensei_!" Kashima pipes up, cheery as usual, though her cheeks seem to be tinged with the barest, almost uncharacteristic, hints of pink. On the other hand, Hori-_senpai_ mutters a "good morning" to both of them, and returns his look back to Kashima as he usually does. If the taller girl squeaks inaudibly under his focused glare, nobody says anything about it. "It _is_ nice to see you today."

"What are you guys doing here?"

"Ah, see, we were wondering if Seo-_sensei_ was free for today!" Kashima says smoothly, as Hori nods along, his lips stretched out in a thin line. "We needed someone to sing on, well, my behalf, and I suggested that you should be the one to do that. I hope you don't mind?"

Yuzuki looks at Kashima, then at Hori-_senpai_, and something about it must've really amused her because she just laughs and _laughs_ and then - "Fine. I'll sing for you or whatever, if that's what you want." And lower, so that Kashima would hear and Chiyo barely could: "You really don't wanna lose face in front of your '_Hori_-_chan_-_senpai_', huh? How _cute_, Kashima."

Kashima, who colors red and pouts a rather cute pout at Yuzuki, before taking Hori-_senpai_ from under his arms (like Kashima had done when Chiyo first met him: Chiyo can't help but think what she said then, "_Put him down and run!_"), and running off, bellowing "See you later!" as she went.

As Kashima had passed her by, Chiyo realizes: Kashima had smelled of _flowers_.

And another thing: for some reason or another, there had been a little blue flower tucked into Hori-_senpai's_ left shirt pocket.

Chiyo gets another bouquet under her desk - more familiar this time, red poppies and yellow tulip, and something she remembers Mikorin once drew and told her was hibiscus. Her classmates see her looking shell-shocked at it, exchange knowing glances for some reason, and don't tell her anything.

The thing is - everywhere from here to a hypothetical 2-Z class knows of her crush on Nozaki. And because life is a fantastic troll, this means everyone in the entire year, _save_ Nozaki himself. And the thing is, this schtick - giving her flowers, hiding it in places where he knew she was going to be - it just _wasn't_ his style.

After all, for a romance writer, Nozaki couldn't know a real-life romance - her real-life romantic feelings for him - if it punched him in the face.

So it just begs the question: who the hell is this guy, and what is he planning to do? And why does he just have to use - how many was that already - _six_ kinds of flowers?

Chiyo thinks she should catch up with Mikorin at lunch later. Hopefully, Kashima would've told him who had asked her to stuff flowers under Chiyo's desk (and it _was_ her, Chiyo'd recognized the scent, oddly enough); at the very least, she could ask Mikorin what this was supposed to mean in _hanakotoba._

* * *

Oddly enough, when she looks for him at his desk come lunch break, he isn't there.

Which, in itself, is boggling enough. The reason Mikorin usually brings his own _bento_ is so he doesn't have to brave the cafeteria - "_Too many people, too little food_," he had said. The few times he had eaten lunch outside the safety of his own desk had been because she dragged him places, so having him move about without needing her to drag him along was a surprise.

Actually, the only reason why Chiyo gets to see him is because she suddenly decides to go to her locker, get her book for next period. It's not something she does often - her teacher in this period doesn't like working off the prescribed book, instead using a more difficult one.

So the one thing she's sure of is this: he didn't see her coming.

"Mikorin, what are you doing?"

"…!"

Mikorin stills, eyes wide and face pale, exactly like a little kid who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

The hallway is mostly empty; everyone else had fled to the cafeteria, in search of the limited-time _katsudon_. Chiyo had felt insurmountable pity for those unlucky enough to cross Yuzuki during lunch break, as the other girl had chuckled about crushing dreams and ordering a lot of stuff, and so Chiyo had told her and Kashima to go along first. Which was why -

\- which was why the world right now is just her and him and the blush blooming high on his cheekbones, a bouquet lying innocently in his hands and the smell of flowers sticking to his person.

"Mikorin, it was you?"

"Tsch. I told Kashima that having her help me would make it obvious." He murmurs, looking anywhere but at her, his entire body tense with something that might be quantified as fear, if Chiyo didn't know him better. And she _did_ know him better - why would Mikorin have reason to ever be _scared_, just because he suddenly decided to give her gifts?

(It's a testament to how much time she spends with Nozaki, that her mind doesn't immediately take the obvious implications of this.)

"But yeah, it's me."

As he says this Mikorin hands her the bouquet, his eyes wandering - from her to the ceiling, from her to the ground, until finally deciding that the line of lockers in their peripheral vision was a better thing to look at.

Where the first one had been a modest white and blush pink, and the second one an explosion of vibrant reds and yellows, this third one is a cool blue-purple mix. In fact, if Chiyo were to be narcissistic for a moment, she'd say it'd remind her of:

"Um, actually," Mikoto murmurs shyly, his words almost lost to the silence between them, "The color reminded me of your eyes."

This is the kind of move that Chiyo expects him to pull a cheesy pick-up line with, so the fact that he doesn't is probably the reason why she flushes red in return. Because the Mikorin who pulls those lines doesn't always mean it; _this_ Mikorin, of the shy bluster and red cheeks, is the one she both knows by heart and doesn't know where he sprung from. The one who had looked with her with pain in his eyes and asked her, voice wavering, if she thought he was _attractive_.

"Th-thank you, Mikorin. As expected of you, you always pick such pretty flowers." This one has an even mix of more flowers she recognizes him telling her about, a few chapters back in _Let's Fall In Love_ \- violets, a few bunches of what could only be bluebell. But wedged in between, in every other space it could be wedged in, a small blue flower.

Chiyo doesn't have Mikorin's flower knowledge, but she's pretty damned sure it's the same flower she and Yuzuki saw Kashima tucking into Hori-_senpai's_ pocket. The same flower, come to think of it, that Mikorin had once used in abundance, one of Suzuki-kun's adoring two-page-spread admissions of love ago.

_Forget-me-nots,_ Mikorin had told her, _they symbolize true love. Fitting for the Mamiko and Suzuki-kun OTP, yeah?_

"But Mikorin," Chiyo says wistfully, plucking a blossom out of her bouquet, showing him - _forget-me-nots, Mikorin, did you remember what you told me this meant?_ "Aren't you supposed to save this for the girl you really like? The one you were talking about last night? I don't think you should be giving them to me…"

Mikorin takes a deep breath, wrenches his gaze away from the lockers, and looks at her with those eyes again, that look that makes her want to hold him close and protect him, and also makes her want to scrutinize further the dull quickening thump-thump-_thump_ of her heart, why does he keep using that look on her.

(He's being _really_ obvious right now, totally obvious, Mikoto can't understand why _she_, of all people, just doesn't seem to get it.)

"I _am_ saving that for the girl I like," Mikorin blurts out, his face the reddest she's ever seen it, "That's why I gave it to _you_."

"Yeah, but Mikorin: _true_ _love_? I appreciate the sentiment, I think they're lovely, but I don't think this is the kind of flower you'd give a friend -"

"Please listen to me, Sakura." Mikorin says, so seriously that Chiyo can't just help but stare at him, at his red cheeks and voice cracking in sheer honesty. "Because you just have to know. When I say that I like you, it's not just because we've grown to be close friends. When I say I like you, it's because, well."

He licks his lips, bites them, and looks at her with those bright eyes that seem to be trembling, threatening to burst into tears. "_I like you_. A _lot_. And I know you're head over heels over Nozaki, but that doesn't change anything. Doesn't have to change anything. We can still be friends, if you still wanna have me. I just thought - after everything you've done for me, being my friend, hanging out with me, giving me advice - the least you deserved was my honesty."

"So I'll tell you now. Chiyo Sakura, in all the time I've known you, I have only really lied to you _once_. Um." He reaches upward, puts a hand on his name, flushes an even deeper red. "Err. Cheesy lines included."

It's not exactly a surprise that Mikorin kept springing his lines on her - _it was a real-life practice exercise gone terribly wrong_, Nozaki had told her before, _he pulls that off on anybody and everybody, please don't mind it_. What surprises Chiyo was that, apparently, all the times he'd used them on her - complimented her clothes, face, smiles, what seemed to be everything but their shared study habits - he had actually _meant_ them. In all their cheesy glory.

It takes her a minute, two minutes, to find her voice back in the middle of this confession (oh my God, her good friend Mikorin was giving her an honest-to-goodness _love confession_). "Which one was it, then?"

"When I said that I didn't want you bothering me."

So that means everything else was true. Which was. _Wow_. Despite the fact that he gets embarrassed mere seconds after, their Mikorin really does have his way with words.

"I'm sorry if I just screwed up everything between us, Sakura. I just really thought you should know."

"…you know I can't make you any promises, right, Mikorin?"

"Yeah, I know. I think I just jinxed myself by saying '_Nozaki_' in the middle of my own love confession." Mikorin says, laughing wryly. "But I guess all I'm hoping for right now is that you give me a chance. And if it ends up that you don't like me back - that's all right. Like I said, I really like being your friend. The only thing is, I hope you'll still be fine being friends with a guy who likes you both as a friend, and, err, a woman."

"…you _hesitated_, Mikorin. You just embarrassed yourself, didn't you."

"I-It's not my fault that being honest is super embarrassing, okay? Cut a guy some slack here." Chiyo laughs, and Mikorin pulls a rather adorable pout on her before laughing along. At the very least, the pain she'd seen in his eyes had subsided, little by little. "So yeah. Call me old-fashioned, but I guess I'm courting you now. And, um. I'd like to take you out sometime. See a movie or something. If you're fine with that."

"Yeah, I guess I'd like that." Chiyo says, her cheeks also growing warm, in turn. Never did she think that the day would come when she said yes to a date with a non-Nozaki person - with _Mikorin_, no less, who had become for all intents and purposes her best guy friend - but the thing is she had always been comfortable around him, always liked spending time around him, and the _least_ she could do, really, is to accept his feelings. In any case, she also wants to understand why her heart sometimes seems to skip beats whenever she's with him, in ways similar to how she is around Nozaki, but…_different_, somehow.

"However…you're really fine with this?" _With __**me**__?_ "A date is fine, but as for the bigger picture…I can't give you a yes or no answer outright, Mikorin. I need time to think about it."

"It's fine," Mikorin assures her, again carefully reaching out to fix her hair. "See, this _cute girl _once told me I was kind of a good friend. And you know, a great guy. So I guess being patient is part of the deal."

"Yeah, it's usually a part of the package deal, I think."

"And thank god for that," Mikorin sighs, before smiling and saying, "Guess I'll see you around. _Chiyorin_."

And as Mikoto pulls in to press a second kiss - close-lipped and chaste, as gently as the first one from last night - to the top of her head, Chiyo can't help but think:

_How long had he wanted to call her that?_

.

.

.

**_fin._**

**_Original AO3 Link: /works/2335286_**


End file.
